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What's in the Bag?

Cameras/Accessories

The cameras we use have to be rugged, as my gear will have generally flown with me, on an average year, between 150k-200k miles. It get bumped and dragged, mounted on fast moving cars, pushed into the slipstream of a helicopter to get an angle, you name it.

Workhorse Lenses

Nothing fancy at all about these lenses. They're just fast, sharp, and durable. All are fixed aperture, to eliminate as many variables as possible. All have exceptional glass and coatings. They get the job done, cover about 90% of our needs, and are always with us on location.

Specialty Lenses

Small Flash/Accessories

Small flash! Handy, smart, and very portable. We use them on big jobs and small- as main lights, fill lights and background lights. We've put them in cars, on motorcycles, inside jet engines and cockpits of high performance planes. Versatility is one of their strengths, in addition to their compactness.

Various Light Shapers

Given their mission, there are huge numbers of light shapers out there on the market. Included here are the ones we use, from hand holdable, VAL style diffusers to soft boxes and umbrellas. All have their purpose, and our use of them is governed by the nature of the job, or the portrait subject, placed in a particular environment.

Joe McNally Lastolite Products

Happy to have worked with the very responsive folks at Lastolite to create this line. It's not all that often you get a major manufacturer to listen to you, and they've been great about keeping an open ear and mind. My favorites are the Tri-flash, the Tri-Grip, with the cutout window of varying size (you determine how big or small) and of course the Ezybox with the white interior, which has proved to be popular, industry wide.

Large Flash/Light Shapers

Gotta love a big light, right? When you really need a big source, and sometimes when you don't really, but just want to use it to make somebody look good or impress the client, they are wonderful to haul out onto the set.

Radio Transmitters/Receivers

When we're using small flash, we do our best to start line-of-sight. But here's the thing- sometimes that's just not doable, and sometimes we're using larger flash units. That's where radio comes into play.

Various Grip

When you use lights, the obvious corollary to that usage is how and what do you hang them on? We use Avenger C-stands religiously, and Manfrotto stacker stands. Also Justin Clamps, Manfrotto magic arms and clamps, mini-booms, high rollers, you name it. The stuff that holds the lighting stuff is all in here.

Camera Bags/Grip Cases

You call, we haul. We are almost always on location, and not too often in the safe and sane confines of a studio. We use an array of bags, to fit the mission of each shoot- everything from Think Tank bags, to Kata rollers, to Lightware duffels, to Gura Gear backpacks.

Tethering Hardware/Software

In this section resides the stuff we use to get the camera to talk to the computer. Our go to products are all made by Tether Tools, from the cables to the camera platform. Just great stuff. Also in here is a quick overview of the software we use for the transmission and display of images.

Computers/Hardware/Etc.

In the digital world, everything's moving at a lighting pace, so we're constantly testing out new gear , in an effort to keep it all up to date. There's a ton of stuff out there, but here's what we use in the studio and on-location to keep our workflow running smoothly.

Computer Software

Though our studio isn't known for tons of post-processing, the fact is, every digital frame needs at least a minor tweak here or there. We use this software every day, and it helps us to turnaround files as efficiently as possible.

Printers/Paper

The thoughts, notions, and ideas here come from thirty five years in the field as a shooter. Twenty five on the road for National Geographic. Life staffer. Sports Illustrated contractor. 60 countries. 50 states. Read on, and welcome to my blog.